[Manifold-l] Manifold reference clients

[F Whiteley]

Simon,

>>I don't think that it is at all helpful for customers to be making guesses
>>about any one company's financial viability in light of there not being
>>any quantitative statistics on sales, licenses, revenue etc.

I think this was Pat's problem.  

He needs to have an argument to feed to the board level directors and they
will ask for this information. They are the ones taking a risk judgement.

My counter argument is that even if the worst happened an argument can still
be put forward for going for Manifold now because it's so good and so cheap,
and you can mitigate the effects.

But I still maintain that this is a case of a little information going a
long way. 

We are all investors in this project whether we like it or not so it would
be nice if someone helped us a little on the selling side. 

How about a couple of adverts, presence at Trade shows, something to point
clients to?

May be some indication of market share, or even projected market share,
anything would help confidence.  Some examples of why it has been chosen
over the competition for a major roll out.  Just basic stuff.  

Maybe its there on Manfold.net, I admit to not going back there to check out
the marketing side( my guess is that Pat's done that), but I don't see it in
the press.

Oh, and finally to all listers ... please accept my apologies if I have
inadvertently caused offence, or cast aspersions on Manifold finances, it
most certainly was not my intent, I was just trying to exemplify Pat's
problem.

Happy listing...

Francis


-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Greener (SpatialDB Advisor)
[mailto:spatialdbadvisor at netspace.net.au] 
Sent: 18 October 2006 02:33
To: F Whiteley; 'Pat Waggaman'; manifold-l at lists.directionsmag.com
Subject: Re: [Manifold-l] Manifold reference clients

Everyone,

>>> The point was raised that the forestry industry works long term, it  
>>> takes 20 years - down here - to grow trees
>
> I brought this topic up at the Manifold user meeting at UCL and we had an
> interesting discussion about it.  As the number of licences sold was not
> forth coming from Manifold, there was a concern regarding Manifold long  
> term funding of the product.  From my perspective the sales don't seem  
> to support the expenditure, which apparently means we are getting a real  
> bargain!

I don't think that it is at all helpful for customers to be making guesses
about any one company's financial viability in light of there not being any
quantitative statistics on sales, licenses, revenue etc. The help page  
"About
Manifold System" points out that CDA International Ltd has been in business
since 1993 (ie 13 years) which is a long time to be in the computing  
industry.
Manifold GIS has been on the market since 1997 - though other products did  
exist
before 1997. The product we all know and love since 5.0 has been around  
for over
4 years with beta builds for over a year before that.

I attended some of the first ESRI User Conferences when there were,  
literally,
only a handful of users of ArcInfo. No one questioned ESRI Inc's commercial
viability then - AND the software cost hundreds of THOUSANDS of dollars  
and not
hundreds of dollars! It is unfair to question Manifold GIS in a way that  
we did not
for ESRI back all those years ago. To do so creates FUD which plays into  
the hands
of Manifold's competitors.

> I don't care how it is financed just as long as I can run Manifold, and  
> yes, at least one of the users represented was a large civil engineering  
> company using other mainstream GIS systems and Manifold appeared to be  
> their
> preferred product.

This passion for Manifold GIS is its greatest strength. We know and love  
it because
it is GOOD, VERY VERY GOOD! And we use it alongside other products so we  
constantly
benchmark its functionality.

> So we can be assured the product is a good solid GIS and fit for  
> purpose: we have a very good bargain software which may or maynot be  
> around for very long.

It is up to CDA International to decide pricing. There has been no mention
of price increases which indicates to me that the company is financially  
healthy.
If they needed to up the price we would have heard warning sounds for  
quite a while
now. All the latest updates are coming for free with no indication of  
there being
a charge! IMHO 7.0 was a massive gift to us users when they would have  
been justified
in charging the standard version upgrade price of around USD50. That they  
didn't
again indicates that they are not feeling any great financial constraints.  
It also
indicates that they are an honourable company: they said that 7.00 was a  
6.50 SP and
kept to their word even though I believe that they could have changed  
their minds and
charged us for 7.00. That buys a lot of allegiance from me because, as an  
old fashioned
bloke I believe a "man's word is his bond".

> 20 years is too long to plan for in software terms, so what can we  
> expect?
> My advice is nothing, don't bargain on anything.  Protect your  
> application
> by being in a position to port to another GIS if you need to - this  
> could be
> expensive and long winded, but only a cost you would incur in the  
> unlikely
> event that Manifold folds or is bought out and yanks up the prices.  This
> scenario is likely to happen to any company, but probably more likely  
> with Manifold than those that have been around since 1985.

There has been a lot of discussion about ESRI's pricing over the years. I  
have
heard that they have not been making much money in desktop sales and are  
keen
to move back to the server appliance as they can charge a premium for this
technology. Their background is mainframes and big computing machines and  
so
would see servers as more in line with their history and cost structures.  
I agree
with Dimitri that they are not nimble enough to truly compete on the  
desktop at
desktop prices. My view is that they survive because, through their giving
software to universities, they have won the hearts and minds of geomatics  
professionals
such that when they leave uni and go to work in a company or govt  
department they
buy ESRI software because that is what they are used to and believe is  
what true
geospatial professionals should use.

> Manifold actually gives you the ability to protect yourself to a certain
> extent from this event - using external databases to hold the data will
> allow you to migrate to another system if you have to, albeit with some  
> cost in extra programming and systems admin.  You should do this in any  
> system.

Yes this is true but the biggest single thing that gives anyone protection
is to ensure that, at the database level, there is data-level  
interoperability.
This is what Oracle Spatial provides.  Then you can purchase best of breed
software that fits your business requirements: Manifold for generic GIS  
processing;
a CAD package for CAD specific things; etc etc. More importantly, GIS  
Managers should
move to manage a business's geospatial metadata and time-invariant things  
like page
layouts, fonts, styles etc independently of any one vendor.

> Even adding the extra cost of porting from Manifold licensing will be
> significantly cheaper at this time ( about 1/10th ).

The cost of migrating from any one vendor to any other is always the  
biggest
single cost - far outweighs license costs.

> The biggest worry I have is activation keys ....

> I would really be happier if I could buy the software for life, not till  
> the next hardware failure or upgrade, and be able to back it up for 10  
> years
> without fear.

This is a reasonable concern though I suspect that CDA International is in  
no
danger of going bust.

> All this needs to be costed in both Manifold and its suggested  
> alternative. My guess is that Manifold will still win hands down.
>
> But all the uncertainty is not helping - I think Manifold are playing  
> things too close to their chest: A lot of people will be put off  
> developing new
> code based on Manifold ( a heavy investment) if they think the cost
> justification is about to go pear shaped any minute now.

I don't know where all this uncertainty is coming from so to discuss it  
just
keeps the fuelling something which just isn't real.

Given that we all seem to be airing our views on Manifold's future I will  
air mine.
I think Manifold GIS will simply go from strength to strength. Business  
Partners
are already starting to appear and the product just keeps getting better.  
If anything
did happen to CDA International I suspect it more likely that some other  
company
will make them an offer they can't refuse. If I was Microsoft or even  
Oracle, I would
be making that offer (before Jack makes them an offer)!

regards
S
-- 
--------------------------------------------------
Simon Greener
SpatialDB Advice, Solutions Architect,
Oracle Spatial, MYSQL, PostGIS and Manifold enthusiast
Allens Rivulet, Tasmania, Australia.
Voice: +61 3 62396397
Longitude: 147.2048
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